The Word is out: it’s the final column
The abrupt end to the New Zealand-set series 800 Words after three seasons has upset its main star. Amy Nelmes Bissett reports.
He’s got an impressive 28 years of acting under his belt but Erik Thomson says bidding farewell to his 800 Words character George Turner has to be the most ‘‘bittersweet’’ of his career.
The much-loved show and his equally muchloved portrayal of widowed newspaper columnist George is unexpectedly being shelved after the third season. The final eight episodes will air in New Zealand from next week.
‘‘Saying goodbye to my character, if I think about it for too long, I get quite upset,’’ Thomson tells Stuff from his home in Adelaide, South Australia.
‘‘That TV role was more than just a TV role for me. It really is an end of an era.’’
The 51-year-old admits he immediately fell for the role. George is widowed after his wife dies in a car crash and 800 Words follows the many lows and even comic highs of raising two children alone after relocating to the fictional seaside town of Weld in New Zealand.
‘‘When I read it, I had a real emotional response to it,’’ says Thomson. ‘‘It’s a widower and there’s a nice juicy emotional foundation to start with. It was a starting-over story and that inspired me.’’
But the role was much more to Thomson than just another string to his acting bow.
The married dad-of-two, who was born in Scotland but raised in New Zealand, admits for the first time that he was drawn to the character after his own experience.
‘‘I’ve got a very dear friend of mine, and his wife – who was also a very dear friend of mine – died in a farm accident in the Waikato nine or 10 years ago. I was very close to that experience with him,’’ he says. ‘‘He was left with two young boys.
‘‘I went to the funeral and spent a week over there just after it happened. You don’t need to feel any closer than that.
‘‘I’d hate to be in his situation. It’s been a very difficult time for him and still is. It’s a very hard thing to get over. I don’t think you ever do.’’
It’s perhaps no surprise then that Thomson is ‘‘disappointed’’, as he puts it, that the show has suddenly found itself on the scrap heap, despite it still being hugely popular.
But the actor says that’s life in the current Netflix world of entertainment.
‘‘Netflix is two years old [in New Zealand] and I get on it now and I just want them to tell me what to watch,’’ he tells.
‘‘You have so much choice and some are good and some aren’t. But you want someone to do that work for you.
‘‘And I’m sick of watching all this American stuff. I love just good New Zealand and Australian drama.
‘‘We had a really, really good audience for this show – particularly in New Zealand, people really cared about it so, of course, it’s disappointing.’’
He hopes that free-to-air television, especially original drama, will have a renaissance as the audience falls out of love with the exhausting mining that goes into finding a show on a streaming service.
‘‘I think we all just want something good to watch,’’ he says.
‘‘We want to relate to the situation and want to be told a nice story. All the shows on Netflix are trying to outdo each other. How crazy they can get. It doesn’t have to have aliens or time travel.
‘‘I just want a show with a bit of heart. A lot of heart, actually. Now, it seems the business model has got in the way.’’
But there’s still hope that this isn’t the total end of 800 Words. Thomson, who also starred in the hugely popular Packed to the Rafters, says there’s a chance of a reunion show in the future.
‘‘You never know, there could be a reunion,’’ he says. ‘‘We all enjoyed making the show so much. That’s perhaps the hardest thing. It’s also saying
‘‘I’m sick of watching all this American stuff. I love just good New Zealand and Australian drama. We had a really, really good audience for this show – particularly in New Zealand.’’ Erik Thomson